1. Field of Invention
Fertilizers, Organic Fertilizers, Natural Biodegradable Organic Fertilizers.
2. Prior Art
World trade in fertilizers is dependent upon the availability of phosphate in as pure form as feasible (1).
(1) R. P. Sheldon, "Phosphate Rock", Sci. Am. 246(6), p. 45, June, 1982.
For the most part, farming, particularly in the developed countries, is highly mechanized, and the machines made to spread fertilizer call for a granulated product that does not become sticky in contact with moist air. As a result, current methods of manufacturing fertilizer ordinarily turn out chemically complex mixed compounds such as diammonium phosphate. Moreover, the fertilizers tend to be highly concentrated in order to cut down the amount of material that must be handled in the delivery system and by the farmer.
These practices impose rigorous standards of quality on the raw materials used in the manufacture of fertilizer by traditional means. For instance, some phosphate rock, of which there are large world reserves, contains varying amounts of the oxides of iron, aluminum and magnesium. Phosphate rock with excessive amounts of these elements cannot be used economically in modern manufacturing because the gels of such rock clog the filters and pipes of manufacturing equipment. More than this, such deposits cannot be mined economically.
There are several advantages to employing the improved method of the invention to manufacture a natural, biodegradable and cost-effective fertilizer over other methods currently in use.
Other fertilizer manufacturing methods have a need for the absence of metallic impurities such as iron oxide, alumina and magnesia, found in phosphate rock deposits. These cause the formation of gels which interfere with the manufacturing process, increasing costs of production.
In the present invention, powdered and dried skim milk which is essentially fat free is used as a principal ingredient because it is a natural source of phosphate in the form of free and structurally-bound phosphates, of free and structurally-bound calcium, and contains an abundance of nitrogen and potassium, all necessary to plant formation and growth.
In other methods, phosphate rock with excessive amounts of metallic elements, some essential for plant growth, cannot be utilized economically. The main processes for manufacturing phosphate fertilizers call for the dissolution of these elements in the phosphate rock by sulfuric acid, which is an energy-expensive commodity.
In the present invention, dried plant leaves which have completed their life cycles, i.e., dead leaves, and which have been ground to a powder in order to produce a great increase in surface area available for chemical reaction, have been chosen as a principal ingredient because, in this state, their trace metals and/or elements and nitrogen content, all necessary for good plant growth, are most readily available to the plant root and soil bacteria systems, once growing conditions have been established. The use of this ingredient, particularly in the powdered form, is a principal factor in rendering the manufacturing process and ultimate product highly cost-effective.
Much phosphate rock is shipped by sea, and so, in other fertilizer manufacturing methods, the grade of rock must be kept high in order to hold down the shipping cost per unit of phosphate. Also, shipping encounters wide variations of atmospheric conditions in heat and humidity, demanding that the final form of the shipped compound maintain high stability in order to remain cost-effective.
In the present invention, the third ingredient, water, when used minimally with the well-mixed powders of preferably deciduous leaves and dried and powdered skim milk which is essentially fat free, is believed to create a chemically-bonded substance or composition, the final form of which, when dried of excess moisture, yields a granulated "compound" resembling neither powder in the original form. No impurities to the natural organic fertilizer compound are present. The component content remains unchanged.
Water, whether pure, natural or treated, assists in or instigates a chemical bonding between the other two ingredients, yielding a new end-product composition or "compound". Upon removal of excess moisture by air or mild heat drying, the resulting composition or "compound" is a well-granulated, highly stable compound which remains so under wide variations or changes of atmospheric conditions of heat and humidity, all components necessary to plant growth remaining intact.
As will be and become apparent, the fertilizer composition of the present invention serves admirably in fulfilling a long-felt need and effectively accomplishes all of the objectives of the present invention, as set forth hereinafter.